The Penguin Random House Creative Writing Awards, which annually present $112,000 in scholarships to fifty-six New York City public high school seniors for original poetry, fiction & drama, memoir, graphic novel, and spoken word poetry compositions, were held on June 7. Since 1994, more than two million dollars have been awarded to students and their schools by Random House, and now Penguin Random House, through this awards competition. In this twenty-third year for the competition, more than 1,300 entries were received from a number of diverse public high schools throughout the city’s five boroughs. (more…)

Calling all Tri-State Area Educators! You are invited to the Penguin Random House Seventh Annual Author Event for NYC Educators. Please RSVP as soon as possible to reserve your spot; space for this event fills up quickly!

Held at the Random House building in midtown Manhattan on Monday, October 12th from 1-4pm, the event will feature nine authors who will each discuss and sign free copies of their book.

We recently caught up with author Ernest Cline to learn more about his new book Armada (Crown, July 2015), the success that Ready Player One (Crown, August 2011) has had in common reading programs and among students, as well as his advice to young writers.

From where did you get the inspiration for your latest novel?

I think the main inspiration came from growing up as a child of Star Wars, ET, and Close Encounters, as well as growing up at the dawn of the videogame and home computer age. I was part of the first generation to have a starship simulator in my living room, in the form of an Atari 2600. I used to build an X-Wing cockpit out of couch pillows in front of the television, so I could pretend that I was Luke Skywalker on his way to blow up the Death Star. I spent a huge portion of my childhood wishing that my wicked videogame skills might someday have value in the real world, a fantasy that was made even more intense by all of the videogames-become-reality stories I devoured back in the 80s, like WarGames, Tron, Ender’s Game, or The Last Starfighter. (more…)

For struggling readers, the simple act of finishing a book can be a challenge. In addition to obstacles that reading ability may present, some students are so discouraged by past classroom experiences that the sight of a high school textbook instantly turns them off. Additionally, the emphasis that Common Core places on complex and nonfiction reading leaves many students, and even some teachers, feeling that nothing they read in class can be interesting or relevant.

To help these students, my department created a class focused on graphic novels. We wanted to provide students with accessible—and relatable—nonfiction that would align with CCSS standards. After reading Max Brooks’s The Harlem Hellfighters last year, I decided to include it in our class. I was intrigued to learn about a part of history that was previously unfamiliar to me, and I admired the author’s honest depiction of war and its portrayal in the media. It seemed like the perfect complement to a more traditional graphic novel like Art Spiegelman’s Maus. (more…)

In the year since my book about preventing bullying and building empathy, Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathywas published, I’ve traveled around the country talking to students, parents, and educators. I hear over and over again about a hunger: For complex conversations, with and among teenagers, about their social experiences. Parents and educators know this is important, but that doesn’t make it easy to know how to start. And so I find that when I ask a roomful of kids how many of them are sick of hearing “Don’t bully,” they almost all raise their hands. But if I ask if they get the chance, in class or other organized settings, to have deep discussions about online cruelty, or slut shaming, or upstanding, few if any hands go up. (more…)

Ward Melville High School Teacher, Dr. Elizabeth Kelso, first-place recipient of the 2013 Penguin Random House Teacher Awards for Literacy, has penned a holiday letter to Academic Marketing Director Michael Gentile to express her gratitude for Penguin Random House’s support of educational innovation:

Dear Michael,

Being recognized by Random House was amazing. Seeing the room where I would speak had a similar effect. Thank you for grounding me and getting me to feel my message more than the space.

I am grateful to you and your team for creating an award program that supports educational invention. At this time it feels like education and schools are moving away from creative experiments that draw people together in the most basic and human ways. Recognizing The Living Book Project reiterates the importance of people coming together around story, experience and dialogue.

I am excited that our paths will continue to meet through this work.

Happy holidays.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Kelso (Liz)

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Click here to view pictures from the 2013 NCTE Conference First-Timers Breakfast, where Dr. Kelso was presented the award.

Click here to apply for the 2014 Penguin Random House Teacher Award for Literacy.